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cuttlefish and live plants

Cuttles

Hatchling
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Jul 16, 2007
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Howdy, all!

I'm a student currently working with a prof. who specializes in cuttlefish behavior. We are redesigning our cuttlefish system to try and maximize health and longevity in our research animals.

In the past, we have had problems with our system "overloading" on nitrates and poisoning our cuttlefish. In the redesign we are increasing filtration, but I also am wondering about the possibility of live plants to help stabalize our water.

Have any of y'all used marine plants or algae with cuttlefish? How did you make it work? Were you able to improve/stabalize your water quality?
 
Most people use refugiums with macro algae for nutrient export and to grow small colonies of pods..etc. This works well if maintained. Often, the macro grows dense and ends up collecting detritus which ends up have the oposite of the desired affects on nitrates.

You can also use a Deep sand bed in the tank or in a remote bucket. The anoxic environment will develop bacterial colonies that will remove nitrates. Or you can add sulfur denitrator, dose a carbon source like sugar or vodka, or use a product like AZNO3
 
:welcome: to TONMO! What species of cuttles are you working with?
 
Beware of the AZNO3 solution. I read some reviews, found several that noted a problem with cynobacteria, tried it anyway and it took months to get rid of the cyno explosion. I threw the rest away.
 
In my ceph system I had significant nitrates - 70+. I did vodka/sugar for a while and didn't like the idea of adding every day. Same for AZNO3, it works for a while, but it isn't a good solution IMO (I had no issues with cyano).

My system is about 200-250 gallons and I use three methods of nitrate reduction, but am unsure which is doing the best because they were all added around the same time. I run a small sulfur denitrator, a 'fuge' full of cheato, and a 20 gallon tank filled with sand as a remote DSB. I know the remote DSB works because I run on my reef system and there are no trates. Plus, its really cheap. I don' think the cheato 'fuge' does much. The denitrator seems to work as well.

I suggest you use the biggest remote DSB you can - make sure you filter the water that feeds the RDSB so it doesn't collect detritus. :biggrin2:
 

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